Pre-Book Controversy

Here comes a book that’s not out yet, but already stirring up controversy. Makes ya wonder if it’ll even make it to publication.

Film director Paul Verhoeven ( “Basic Instinct,” “Showgirls,” “Total Recall,” “RoboCop,” “Starship Troopers”) has written a book which suggests that Jesus was fathered by a Roman soldier during a Jewish uprising against Roman rule in 4 B.C.

Jeffrey Weiss, Religion blogger for The Dallas Morning News said:

Here's the truth, fast as I can tell: We have exactly zero contemporaneous historical evidence for anything about Jesus. The best we have is in the Gospel accounts, all written years or decades after the fact, in a culture where strict adherence to detailed historiography wasn't exactly at a premium. Which means that any specific historical claims about the life or person of Jesus -- unless you are claiming Special Revelation -- are the academic equivalent of air guitar.

In an Associated Press article, John Dominic Crossan, a Jesus Seminar founder, felt there was little evidence for the view that Jesus was illegitimate.

"It's an obvious first retort to claims that Mary was a virgin," Crossan said. "If you wanted to do a hatchet job on Jesus' reputation, this would be the way."

There’s already a lot of questioning and doubt – there’s even mudslinging by FoxNews. Verhoeven’s book is due to hit the U.S. in 2009. We’ll see if it makes it.

BookMooch Doesn’t Have to Mooch

Considering BookMooch has an inventory of about 480,000 books among its 70,000 trading members, I may be one of the few people who had never heard of them before reading an article in CNet News.

BookMooch is less than two years old, is free to its members, and has no ads and no fees. The members trade books.

BookMooch accomplishes that by asking people to put up 10 books of their own to receive one point, which will allow them to get their first book for free. In that deal, the new member must be willing to send off three of their own books to other BookMooch members. Unlike Lala.com and Peerflix.com--sites which have fallen down on paying postage for members--BookMooch requires that members pay to send the book. People who have more points than they can use on BookMooch, known as power moochers, can donate their points to charity groups on the site.

Apparently, the average BookMooch member swaps 3.5 books per month. The most-traded books?

The most-traded books on the site, whose membership consists largely of older moms, include Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards (traded 780 times) and The Kite Runner (traded 585 times).

BookMooch has only two employees and was funded solely by John Buckman.

Also worth noting:

Even though BookMooch is free to members, the site generates an estimated half-million dollars in annual book sales for Amazon because of a browser plug-in called the Moochbar, which matches members' book wish lists to Amazon's retail inventory. For every 25 books swapped on BookMooch, at least one person buys a new book on Amazon through the Moochbar.

Strong Book Sales, Weak Outlook

According to The Tennessean:

Year-to-date, sales of fiction and nonfiction religious books are up 5 percent compared with last year, according to Nielsen BookScan USA.

But then, The Tennessean goes on to say:

Greco expects overall book sales nationwide to trail last year's pace through the summer….Greco said that given the uncertain economy, "this could be a bad year" for the sector.

They’re talking about religious books, both fiction and nonfiction. What got this started was news from religious publisher Thomas Nelson Inc., which announced the layoff of about 60, or 10%, of their employees. This was after an earlier announcement that Thomas Nelson would cut its number of yearly titles by half.

The President and CEO of Thomas Nelson, in his blog, From Where I Sit, said:

This change is designed to align us with a shift in the marketplace toward fewer titles generating more of the sales. It will also enable us to invest most of our resources where we can generate the biggest returns.

Publishers Weekly noted that

The layoffs come on the heels of Nelson’s announcement last week that it would bow out of both BEA and ICRS.

Layoffs are never good news, but Thomas Nelson seems to be trying to streamline and realign. The Tennessean tried to put a good swing on it all by saying,

Religious sales should pick up fall through Christmas,assuming the economy improves and depending on how much of their tax rebate dollars consumers spend on such purchases.

This is a Test Post

I'm doing a test post today of the new Blogger Feature that allows me to post ahead of time and Blogger posts at whatever time I preset. I'm hoping this works.

If it does, it'll be a great feature for bloggers to use, especially considering Blogger is free. If it works, I'll follow up with a post letting you know.

Bookmark It! for Writers

Here’s a site, Common Errors in English, that explores language errors – not so much errors in grammar, but rather errors in usage. Like abstruse and obtuse. Know the difference? If you don’t you can check the site to see which one you should use in which situation.

The site is maintained by Paul Brians, Professor of English at Washington State University. You can buy the book, if you want, but he generously makes this available online, along with other useful resources.

Did you ever stop to wonder whether your character is bartering or haggling in the open-air shop in Mexico?

Been perplexed whether you should use “If I were…” or “If I was…”? Look it up on his site. You may be surprised by his answer.

Is “snuck” the past tense of “sneak”? Or is it “sneaked”?

Common Errors in English is this week’s Site to Bookmark. (Thanks to Cathy Wallace for sending this to me.)

The Thinginess of Books

The Los Angeles Times ran an article yesterday about the future of books. They looked at the question of whether we’ll eventually be totally digital and whether we as a culture value the print book anymore.

What is amazing and inspiring about books is just that: their very physicality, the sheer thinginess of them, the fact that you can hold a book in your hands, thump a couple of knuckles on the cover, riffle the pages.

Even though they posed the above question, they then went on to ask:

Yet in an age in which computers are as common as cockroaches, in which the Internet is king, in which seemingly every crumb of information is being sucked up and digitized in a busy blur, does the book -- the tangible kind, not the virtual version -- have a future?

The article concludes that the print book is not dead:

Last month, the Assn. of American Publishers reported that 2007 book sales were up 3.2% over 2006. Since 2002, the book business has seen a growth rate of 2.5% a year. And at the University of Chicago Library, the number of students slouching through the door topped the million mark last year for the first time.

But their conclusion is based less on the statistics than on the marvel of holding old books. They give examples of wonderful old tomes.

Besides computers, students can behold marvels that don't have to be plugged in, such as a newly acquired gem from the 14th century, "Le Roman de la Rose" ("The Romance of the Rose"), a beautifully illuminated manuscript created about 1365, based on the original by Guillaume de Lorris.

Despite their conclusion and their examples, from Galileo to Jacobus de Cessolis, I wonder if they will be proven correct. Will people five hundred years from now hold today’s book in awe and wonder, riffle the pages and be inspired by the thinginess of them? Or will print books go the way of hand-written books by monks and hand-presses?

Don’t count me among the doomsayers. I love books. I read them; I buy them; I treasure them. But I also don’t have an Ipod or a Kindle or a phone I could or would use to download a book. Will I someday be in the minority? Will I someday join the digital world? Will the digital world and the print world learn to co-exist, thrive even? What do you think?

Books: News and Not News

There’s news and then there’s not-news. When it comes to books and reading, here in the U.S. we hear a lot of not-news.

People are not reading as much as they used to. Young adults turn to the Internet and YouTube for their news. Publishers are struggling to make money and are turning to ebooks and no-royalty books. Bookstores are closing. Some people feel writers should get a one-time payment for their books, then give up all rights and make them available for free. Illiteracy is high. Frankly, this is all Not-News. We know it already. We may not like it, but we, as a nation, are not doing a whole lot about it.

Then there’s News. Take a look at the article in AllAfrica.com called, “Nigeria: National Book Policy Ready Soon.”

Dr. Jerry Agada, Minister of State for Education, at a press briefing to commemorate the 2008 World Book and Copyright Day (who in the U.S. even knows there is such a day!) said

the draft policy will address key issues in the book publishing industry such as how to make standard books available to Nigerians, copyright and book piracy. The policy, according to the Minister will also serve as a guide to Nigerians and motivate the citizenry to imbibe the habit of reading books and maintain personal libraries in their private homes.

According to Agada,

the development of a National Book Policy was a proactive step by the Federal Government to have a nation that reads and a nation that thinks, since meaningful socio-economic development cannot be attained in an illiterate environment.

Now that’s news. Good News. We could use a bit more good book news in the U.S.

An Unusual Book

As you probably already surmised from reading this blog, I like to browse the Internet and keep up with publishing news and stories. I came across an article on a Mobile, Alabama, writer who published with iUniverse. So, I started reading the story.

But by the end, what I found most interesting was not the author’s advice on getting published. That was the usual stuff:

(1) Don’t be a snob about writing. Don’t look down your nose at romances, children’s books or mysteries, or any genre you don’t happen to fancy. Keep an open mind.
(2) Have a place of your own to write every day. And be selfish about taking that time for your writing; then go there and do it.
(3) Write more for others and less for yourself. Keep your audience in mind all the time if publication is your aim.
(4) Only send your best work out and, again, only that work appropriate to that publisher and audience.
(5) Watch out for author intrusion. Get your self out of the way. Let the story tell itself.

What I found most unusual is what this author, Maurice Gandy, actually wrote. Not a novel, not a mystery or a romance or a sci-fi. Gandy wrote a 374-page allegory in verse. Yeah, you read that right. He wrote a book “about searching for the perfect wave during the turbulent 1960s amid a cast of characters including the Duke of Tan, Macho Peaches and Coyote Conquistador” in verse.

Concerning the road he took to publication, the article in the Baldwin County Now said:

Gandy’s description of that path — the experiences 40 years ago upon which it was based, the eight years of journals as raw material, the writing of a lengthy narrative told in rhyming verse, to selecting a “hybrid” or “cooperative” publisher, then editing, seeing it published and now marketing it — kept his audience of several dozen people rapt and entertained.

I imagine it is an interesting story. But I’m still flabbergasted by the 374-pages all written in rhyming verse.

Having a Platform for your Book

One thing that agents and acquiring editors look for, especially nowadays, is whether the author has a platform.

Exactly what a platform is can cause people to stutter while trying to explain the term. Some say it means you have a cause. Your book is about curing cancer. Or your protagonist is a recovering alcoholic. Or … you have something to talk about that might get your publicity. Even more so, if you yourself have conquered cancer or been sober for twenty years.

Some think it means that your book touches on a topic that is hot, like the politics in the Middle East or the two lovers end up together because of their work on global warming. Because those topics are relevant, you could get on talk shows.

Although all of that would most likely be a help in promoting your book and can be part of a platform, it’s not really THE platform.

Your platform is your ability to get publicity and sell your book. You are already a well-known speaker with an active line-up of appearances. You’re an established expert in the field you’re writing about. You’re a celebrity who could get on TV for blowing your nose. Everyone knows your name because you have a radio show or you’re a columnist at a major paper. Or you have contacts. Lots of contacts.

Like Sloane Crossley, publicist at Vintage Books, who, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, has used her fat black book of networking contacts to get

an avalanche of press for her first book, the kind of press most first-time authors would kill to get. Names like David Sedaris and Dorothy Parker get tossed around in reference to Crosley, national publications like Entertainment Weekly and Details have reviewed the book (as well as newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and The Chronicle), and essays timed to the book's release have appeared in GQ and Salon.

Sara Nelson, editor of Publisher’s Weekly, has also used her contacts to promote her book.

"Publishing people are often secretly or not-so-secretly trying to write books," she says, speaking from a traffic jam in London. "It makes perfect sense."

Now, you and I may not have these kinds of contacts in our black books (or PDAs), but writers can start trying to build a database of people they could turn to for blurbs, help, recommendations, or promotion. And the time to start is before you publish that book.

Informative Site for Writers

The site I’m focusing on this week is called “The Haunted Computer.” It’s author Scott Nicholson’s website. Nicholson has published novels, short stories, poetry and non-fiction magazine articles. He’s been a reporter, a radio announcer and a painter, among other things. And ya gotta love a guy who likes both David Bowie and The Smashing Pumpkins.

I’ve never read any of his books, but I chose this site to talk about this week because of all the resources he has for writers.

Take a look at his “Articles” page. He has a long list, including such topics as “Talking Points: Dialogue,” “The ‘N’ Word: Dealing with Rejection,” “Fishing for Ink: Getting Noticed by the Media,” and “Nurture Your Inner Hack.”

Then, if you want sample press releases so you can see how they’re done, turn to his “Press Kit” page. Then, finally, visit his extensive “Links” page.

Definitely a site worth browsing.

Recipe for a Great Query Letter

Writers have to put a lot of work into their query letters. It makes sense to do so. Why spend months or even years working on a manuscript, then only allot an hour to write the letter that you hope will sell an agent or editor on your work? That would not make sense.

But even writers who work for days (or even weeks) on a query letter often aren’t sure what to include in the letter.

The secret to the perfect query letter is that there’s no secret. That’s because there isn’t a “One Way to Write a Query Letter.” There is, however, a recipe. But like any good chef, you change the ingredients so that the dish, or query, becomes your own.

First step in the recipe is to gather your tools. Use good quality paper, like 24 weight. Make it white (you can choose beige, but don’t go for odd colors like pink or blue or anything other than white or at most beige). Stick with black ink. Limit yourself to one page. Set your margins at one and a half inch (you can go out to one-inch, like on your manuscript if you need the space, but no more). Single-space. Avoid fancy fonts – go with Times New Roman or Courier New. You don’t have to, but it’s a good idea, to put your query on letterhead – you don’t have to spend money on having a stationery shop print some up; make your own on your computer.

Now for the ingredients – and this recipe only has four:
Look
Hook
Book
Cook

You can change the order on these, add some spices of your own, give it your own spin, but start with this lineup, then think about changing things, if you feel the need.

LOOK:
If you have any connection to the agent, put it upfront, first thing. If you’ve met at a conference, or even heard him/her speak, say so. Definitely say so if she told you to query or send a partial. If you have researched him/her and you see that you have something in common that is relevant to your book, say so. If one of his authors recommended that you contact him, definitely say so. If a big name author, although not one of hers, recommended you, say so. If your manuscript won a contest in which he was the judge, say so.

You get the idea. This opening paragraph is your way of saying LOOK, here’s a reason not to automatically throw my query in the trash pile.

HOOK:
Now it’s time to start talking about the book. Start with a hook, something to entice the agent to keep reading your letter. I suggest your logline -- that one or two sentence exciting summary that makes your book sound like one she’d want to read. Or, if you know the agent is a World War II buff, or a train enthusiast, etc. and your book is set during WWII or the plot hinges on the theft of a valuable model train, you can play up that angle in your hook. Hook the agent.

BOOK:
Now you move into a paragraph about your book – a summary of your 300 page manuscript into one paragraph. Easy,huh? Get books off your shelf at home and read the back covers. How do they describe the plot and characters? Notice they pull you in, make you want to read it. Now look at your book and write a cover blurb.

COOK:
Here’s where you tell about yourself. What makes you the only person who could write this book or especially qualified to do so? You’re a police officer like the protagonist. This book takes place on a movie set and you’ve been an extra in twenty-eight movies. Do you have other books published under this name? Have they sold well? Have you been published in magazines or anthologies? Make sure they will recognize the names of the magazines or newspapers – if they don’t, they’re liable to google the title and you don’t want to get caught fibbing. Has your writing won major contests – don’t bother with the really small ones they won’t recognize. Do you already have a platform to sell your book? Mention that. You have to remember that you’re selling not just your book, but yourself.

Work on your query. Start putting the ingredients in the letter in that order – LOOK, HOOK, BOOK, COOK. There’s a good chance you’ll keep them in that order, but you can always mix things up a little, just don’t leave out any ingredient.

Books and Movies, A Melding

Publishers and producers seem to be holding hands more and more. There have always been book/manuscript scouts on the lookout for movie ideas. Now, Hollywood seems to be doing more than just holding hands – they’re kissing and telling.

The Los Angeles Times has an article about the relationship between HarperCollins and indie producer Jeff Sharp ("Boys Don't Cry," "Proof," "Nicholas Nickleby" and "Evening"). Sharp has launched a book-to-film unit, Sharp Independent, at HarperCollins. He’ll be sifting through submissions and picking out titles he feels would be good for adaptation to the cinema.

How and when did this partnership come about? At a 2006 Christmas party, Sharp met with HarperCollins Chief Executive Jane Friedman.

The two friends talked about the need for a better partnership between filmmakers and publishers. He began outlining a possible joint venture with Friedman, who has a reputation for innovation, and the plan was launched last year.

Now, if you’re a potential HarperCollins author and you get picked by Sharp, that may or may not make you happy. You may be hoping for some other production company.

Never fear, you don’t have to sign with Sharp Independent.

No author will be required to sign a film option as a condition of getting a HarperCollins book deal.

This deal with HarperCollins gives Sharp an inside track on material, but he’s not the only runner on the track.

"If they [HarperCollins] can get more movies made from books, it's a win for everybody," said Simon Lipskar, an agent with Writers House. But even though Sharp's access to material is a plus, he added, "it's a little hysterical to think he's got a big advantage. There's no literary submission with any heat in this town that film scouts can't get their hands on."

I’ve said this before, and I’m saying it again, things are a-changing in the publishing world.

No-Advance Book Deals

There’s a new debate in the publishing world. Last week Vanguard Press announced the launch of a publishing studio that may be a new model for book publishing, moving away from advances to royalty-only deals.

This new model means that Vanguard Press won’t offer authors an advance. It will, instead, pay royalties that it says are twice as high as the current standard, pay those royalties more frequently than is standard, and commit to certain marketing efforts. It also will only buy hardcover and paperback rights in the US and Canada.

This model is indeed new and strange. It’s also controversial.

Most of Vanguard’s authors are well-established authors. They seem to be big supporters of this new venture. They have a sales track record. They have loyal readers. They like the idea of higher royalties and don’t need the advance as much as newer or midlist authors.

But midlist and beginning authors are not so welcoming to this idea. They’re struggling to make their name, to gain their readership. No advance makes it more difficult for them to have the financial resources to live while they write.

Will this new model of no-advance book deals spread to other publishers? Will it lead to other publishers taking risks on new authors since they don’t have to pay money upfront? Will it lead to fewer new authors and the canceling of more struggling midlist authors? We’ll have to wait and see what happens.

Track What You Read

If you’re a writer, chances are you’re also a reader. A writer can’t live in a vacuum. Not only do we tend to be readers, we need to be readers. We need to read other writers in our genre, study what works, what intrigues us, how other great writers manipulate words and plots. We also need to read writers not in our genre. We should stretch ourselves, and sometimes when we’re actually writing our own books, we need to read works that won’t directly influence our own work-in-progress and voice.

But, if you’re like me and are big readers, you can lose track of what you’ve read. I don’t keep a list of books I’ve read. I read them and put them on the shelf.

A friend of mine, Susan Wittig Albert, introduced me to a way to track what I’ve read. It’s an online site called GoodReads. The site is easy to use and you can list books you’ve read, when you read them, and a brief review of the book. You can also list the book you’re currently reading. And you can see what books your friends who are signed up with GoodReads are reading.

I have to admit, I’m not a good reviewer. Some people are quite proficient at writing reviews. I tend to write brief reviews that are more for my own benefit than for someone else. But the reason I like the site is because it gives me an easy, convenient way to track books I’ve read. I’m a couple of books behind in listing, but that’s because my computer died last week and I’m still trying to get everything back up and running.


But if you’d like a way to keep track of your reading, perhaps share great fiction, nonfiction and resource books, check out GoodReads.

Literary Agent’s Blog

The blog I’m highlighting this week is “Nathan Bransford – Literary Agent.” Bransford is an agent with the Curtis Brown agency in their San Francisco office.

He gives advice and even sometimes asks for advice. He’s not as snarky as Miss Snark. Of course, Miss Snark is probably not even Her Snarkiness anymore. I suspect that after she retired her blog, she underwent an exorcism and spent a month at a recuperative spa. I still miss her, but Branson does have his moments:

I'm sorry people, but I still can't answer your follow-up e-mails. I can't tell you how to fix your manuscript, can't tell you how to fix your query, can't recommend other agents.

He represents a fairly wide range of subjects:

I'm particularly interested in literary fiction, mysteries and suspense, historical fiction, narrative nonfiction, business, history, sports, politics, current events, young adult fiction, science fiction and anything else I happen to like! I'm afraid I do not represent poetry or screenplays.

If you might be interested in querying him, it’s a good idea to spend some time reading his blog. If you’re not interested in contacting him, it’s still not a bad idea to listen to an agent and find out what that species thinks and does.

Did You Know Computers Scream When They Die?

This is a little off the usual topic of Straight From Hel, but did you know computers scream when they die?

Mine did, at least.

One minute it was fine, then, while I was in the kitchen preparing dinner, I heard this high-pitched screeching. At first, I thought it was coming from across the street where workmen are putting in a pool and doing landscaping. But I followed the sound to my office, where my laptop displayed a blue screen that said it was doing a total dump of memory.

Aaak. (The second screech was mine.) It wouldn’t turn off, so I jerked out the battery.

After dinner, I put the battery back in and restarted. A poor, pathetic string of blinking blue lights appeared in the blackness of the screen. And nothing more.

I headed off to the Nerd Squad, or whatever they’re called. The diagnosis?

I’m screwed. Most likely the hard drive is corrupted and everything’s lost. Gone. Nothing. Nevermore.

Damn.

Story-Telling in a New Format

Publishers and writers are trying to find new ways to reach the reading public. You’ve most likely heard about publishing via cellphone. I even blogged about it.

Now a publisher is trying something new and, to me anyway, interesting – publishing via Google Maps.

Say what?

Leave it to the Brits to come up with this one.

ReadWriteWeb had an article on the thriller, The 21 Steps, being published by Penguin in conjunction with Google Maps. You navigate around the map to read the chapters.

Booklist’s Keir Graff wrote:

... it can be fun to look at a map and imagine what the places really look like, but here, the Google satellite view just made me frustrated because I wanted to see what the place really looks like at street level and inside the buildings.

I believe I’d have to agree with Graff. On the other hand, have any of you tried out MapJack? It’s currently available only in limited cities, but you get an on-the-street view. That would be much better. Someone real inventive could take it even further and do inside photography so that it would be closer to a movie, except not live action and clickable so that readers could come and go and read at their leisure.

The Latest Trend in Publishing

Writers often ask agents at conferences, “What’s the trend in books? What should I be writing about?” The answer is usually, “If I tell you and you started this second writing in that trend, you’d be too late to catch the wave.” Or “You have to make your own trend.”

Well, there seems to be a trend in business books, although like all trends, you may be too late to benefit from it. According to the Los Angeles Times, today’s trend is to write a book that:
reflects a more sobering view of the economy and offers solutions to help Americans survive the current fiscal woes.

Now is not the time for Buy Real Estate and Become a Millionaire books or Buy-Sell, Buy-Sell and Join the Wall Street Mogul Club books.

Problem is, it takes so long to get a book on the bookshelves, even when the publisher rushes the book, that any book you start writing now will probably be too late. Even books already in the production line chance missing the wave.

The ones that may benefit from the trend are those that forecast something like this might happen to the economy. Those already on the shelves. Those authors are now being called to do TV shows or give advice or to re-release their books.

So it all comes back to creating your own trend. Or being very lucky.

Will Kindle Kindle a Fire under the E-Book Market?

The Kindle has been out for a bit over four months now. And lately, it’s been out for real – as in out of stock.

The consensus among publishers seems to be that the Kindle hasn’t revolutionized the e-book market, but it has energized it. When it first came out, it sold out quickly. The publishing world, according to The Associated Press, said:

they have seen double digit increases in e-book sales since the Kindle's release, including renewed interest in downloads on the Sony Reader. Sales for the most popular books are in the hundreds, comparable to the number for the Sony, which came out in 2006.

For anyone who hasn’t heard, the Kindle is a e-book reader from Amazon.com. It weighs only a bit over 10 ounces and can hold around 200 books. Going off to an island for a month’s vacation – no more suitcase dedicated to books -- just slip the Kindle in your pocket. Of course, don’t forget the battery charger – it’s not known for a long battery life.

People keep saying print books have no need to fear the e-book reader. And at this point they’re probably right. Despite the sell-out of Kindles,

e-books are less than 1 percent of the $35 billion publishing business and likely to remain so. The e-book divisions have been shut down, the e-book award no longer exists. Barnes & Noble has abandoned the e-book field.

On the other hand, I’m hearing from more and more authors who are making their books available in e-format, usually as a complement to the print version. Authors, like publishers are trying to cover all bases.

The Graveyard Shift

The blog I’m highlighting this week is The Graveyard Shift by Lee Lofland.

If you write (or love to read) crime novels – and that includes mysteries, true crime, police procedurals, suspense, etc. – this is a blog worth bookmarking.

Lofland, a veteran police investigator, is the author of the Writers Digest book, Police Procedure & Investigation. He began his career in law enforcement as an officer, then became a sheriff’s deputy, a patrol officer and eventually earned his gold shield as a detective. He went on to become a police academy instructor and an instructor trainer.

He now uses his knowledge to write books and consult with other writers. He’s also a popular speaker and blogger.

On his blog The Graveyard Shift, he covers a lot of topics, from police procedures, tools and equipment to prisons and investigations. This blog is well worth bookmarking.


REMINDER: You have until noon tomorrow (Saturday, the 5th) to enter the drawing for a free copy of author Susan Wittig Albert’s book Nightshade.

Will Blog for a Book Deal

Just a couple of years ago, near the beginning of the blog craze, people were getting book deals based on their blogs. Some agents trolled blogs looking for new ideas and interesting writers to represent. And bloggers made book deals.

Some of that is still going on. But recently another blogger made a book deal. Nothing new. Except ... his deal was reportedly about $300,000. And before the deal he was an unpublished writer. The blogger? Christian Lander. The blog? Stuff White People Like.

In The New York Times, Sara Nelson, editor of Publishers Weekly, figured:

Random House would have to sell about 75,000 copies, a total that would likely land the book on best-seller lists, to earn back its $300,000 advance.

The blog runs into a bit of controversy, since some consider the content racist. Others consider it satirical. Some just call it funny.

As to the book deal ... Lander calls it a surprise, as you’ll see by his 92nd entry on Stuff White People Like.

Guest Author, Susan Wittig Albert

Today we welcome author Susan Wittig Albert. Susan not only is a friend, but an amazing author who has written more books than I can keep up with. She writes the very popular China Bayles series, the latest of which is Nightshade. She also pens the Beatrix Potter series. With her husband, she wrote the historical mystery series under the pseudonym Robin Paige. Plus, she writes nonfiction. I still remember getting her to sign Work of Her Own at the first book signing I ever went to.

Today Susan is going to talk about setting, specifically Pecan Springs, the fictional town China Bayles lives in.

Once you finish reading her post, you can add your own comments or questions. Susan is out of town today doing book events, but she’ll be back tomorrow and will check the comments. Plus, remember to sign up for a free copy of Nightshade. Welcome Susan!

Susan Wittig Albert -- Pecan Springs: The Importance of Setting

A big thanks to Helen for hosting me here at Straight from Hel today. This blog tour celebrates the launch of Nightshade, the latest China Bayles mystery. For those of you who haven’t met her, China is a former criminal defense attorney who left the rat race and moved to Pecan Springs TX, a small town at the eastern edge of the Hill Country, halfway between Austin and San Antonio. There, she owns an herb shop and tends her gardens. Of course, her life isn’t really very quiet--I’ve lost track of the dead bodies that China has stumbled across in the last sixteen books--but that’s par for the course in crime novels. And there’s a lot about Pecan Springs that runs counter to the “cozy” tag that’s often applied to these mysteries. Still, the town is a pleasant place, and I get a lot of mail from readers who confess that they’d like to live there. In this post, I’d like to talk a bit about the way I’ve used Pecan Springs as the setting for the mysteries.


A Small Town with Character . . .


I chose to set the series (my first) in a small town because I grew up in or near small towns and love them. I love the neighborliness, the concern for others, the sense of belonging to a place that has a history and its own special characteristics. All those things are true of the fictional Pecan Springs. In almost every book, there are examples of people who take their neighboring seriously and are concerned for others’ welfare, and I’ve tried to give Pecan Springs its own distinctive character.

Like other real Texas towns (Fredericksburg and New Braunfels, for instance) Pecan Springs was settled in the mid-1800s by German immigrants who built in the Old Country style (limestone block buildings, German vernacular architecture) and left their mark with foods (bratwurst, sauerkraut), beer fests, and family names. The German history is overlaid with a Mexican influence like that of San Antonio, evident in popular foods (Tex-Mex) and music. Pecan Springs has the Hill Country look: cedar-clad hills, spring-fed creeks, and mesquite-oak savannahs. There’s something for everyone, which is very handy for the writer who wants to exploit these distinctive features in her fiction.

Pecan Springs also has its claims to fame. There’s the notable courthouse (built of Texas pink granite, like the one in Wise County) and the Sophie Briggs Historical Museum (featuring a dollhouse that belonged to Lila Trumm, Miss Pecan Springs of 1936, as well as Sophie Briggs's collection of ceramic frogs and the boots Burt Reynolds wore during the filming of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.) “The Sophie Briggs Museum is a big draw in our town,” China says. “It's amazing the affection some people can feel for Burt Reynolds’ boots.” (Some of the elements of the setting invite a little humor now and then, with maybe some gentle satire.) And there’s Central Texas State University, which I included in the town because I wanted to write a mystery about the interaction of the community and the university (Hangman’s Root), and because McQuaid (China’s significant other and an ex-cop) wanted a teaching job in the Criminal Justice Department there.

And Characters

Pecan Springs, like most towns, has its quirky characters. There’s Maebelle Battersby, PSPD’s meter person (don’t let her hear you call her a “meter maid”—she’ll bop you a big one). There’s Maude Porterfield, the 70-something Justice of the Peace, who is hard of hearing but sharp as a Texas tack. In the early books, Bubba Harris was the sheriff, a typical Texan with “a Lone Star Beer belly that rolls out over his Lone Star belt buckle.”

And then there is Jonelle (in Rosemary Remembered) who has the biggest, reddest Big Hair there ever was. When China stares, dumbstruck, Jonelle says, in a kindly way, “Look, honey, I know my hair is bigger'n a tumbleweed, that I'm a walkin', talkin' beehive, an' when anybody at the office loses anything, the first place they're gonna look is in my hair. Does that about cover it?” “Actually,” China mutters, “I was thinking along the lines of the Towering Inferno.”

Quirky characters go a long way to characterize a place (Texas women are notorious for their Big Hair), but they also lighten the seriousness of a sometimes too-serious situation (a murder). They’re memorable—and they can move the story forward. Jonelle is hiding a serious clue under that Big Hair of hers.

A Dark Side

But as China likes to point out, Pecan Springs is not as “cozy” as it may seem to the casual observer. Small-town people are sometimes narrow-minded and parochial. Neighborly folks tend to snoop, and the Old Nueces Street Diner is a veritable gossip switchboard, where the speed of news is measured in nanoseconds. Snoopers and gossipers can be a danger to themselves and others.

And there’s crime, although the local newspaper did its best for years to cover up all the bad stuff. Now, the newspaper is under new management, and the dark side of Pecan Springs is headline news. Since the town is located on I-35, which carries drug traffic from Mexico to points north, a lot of the headlines have to do with drug-related crime. And since the most popular narcotics—marijuana, cocaine, opium—are herbs, China Bayles (as an herbalist) has a special interest in them. Read Spanish Dagger and Love Lies Bleeding for a look into the Texas criminal drug culture. (For a full list of China’s books, in the order of their publication, go here.)

There’s lots more to be said about creating small town settings, but you get the general idea. If you’re a reader, watch the way your favorite author uses the book’s setting to convey information, set expectations, and create a mood. If you’re a writer, try your hand at creating a small town. Give it a history, draw a map for it, people it with odd characters who have stories to tell, and see what you get. It just might be Grovers Corners, NH (Our Town); Whistlestop, AL (Fried Green Tomatoes); or Mitford, NC (Jan Karon’s Father Tim series). Or it might be something like Pecan Springs.

Thanks, Helen, for giving me a place to talk about my favorite small town. And thanks to all the readers who are following this blog tour through cyberspace. If you have questions or thoughts to share, post a comment. I’ll be away from my computer today (visiting the great small towns of Kerrville and Fredericksburg, TX), but I’ll be back on Friday to answer your questions.

About the book drawing and Susan’s blog tour

If you’d like to enter the drawing for a copy of Nightshade go here to register. But you’d better hurry. The drawing for Straight from Hel closes at noon on April 4, 2009.

Want to read the other posts in Susan’s blog tour? You’ll find a calendar and links here.

You can follow Susan on her blog tour by visiting the different blogs. If you enter at least 8 of the drawings along the way, you’ll be eligible for another drawing for an audio book of Bloodroot. Be sure to check out Nightshade in your local bookstore or library. Get a copy, sit back, and visit Pecan Springs.

Thank you so much, Susan.

Bookmark It! for Writers

This week’s Bookmark It! site is actually a blog post. John Kremer sent out a challenge – come up with 101 ways for authors to market their books.

Author Joanna Campbell Slan took up the challenge. Slan is the author of Paper, Scissors, Death, available this September. She lists 101 Ways to Market Your Books on Kremer’s site.

Some are obvious:

Get the best cover possible.

Some less so:

Print marketing information on the inside of that over-run cover and use it like postcards, especially to market to booksellers who want to see the cover before placing an order.

Some cute:

Carry my book with me and read it while I'm waiting in public transportation.

Some sneaky:

Swap with an author friend: I put up her info on Wikipedia and she does the same for me. We both mention our books.

Check out the entire list.

Reading to a Naked Audience

Remember the old advice that if you had stage fright when speaking in public, then you should imagine your audience naked? A bookshop owner in Germany has taken the adage to heart.

He plans to promote a new book detailing East Germany’s passion for nudity with a reading to a naked audience.

According to DW-WORLD.DE, “The event, set to take place in the north-eastern town of Pasewalk and hosted by the nude female model who adorns its cover, is scheduled for April 1.”

And, guess what – the event is sold out.

NOTE: Tomorrow, a fully-clothed Susan Wittig Albert is stopping by Straight From Hel on her blog tour for the latest in her China Bayles series, Nightshade. She’s going to talk about setting, specifically the fictional town she created called Pecan Springs. Stop by (with or without clothes) and ask questions or offer comments. And remember to sign up for the free book giveaway!